The review of the prior art and commercially available boat support systems will reveal that cradle type boat support systems are known and appreciated today. An appreciation of the state of the art in this area can be found from a review of the disclosures of the following United States Patents that relate to boat support systems in general: U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,131,902; 3,139,277; 3,554,394; 3,586,285; 4,094,527 and 4,155,667.
While boat support systems are commercially available today, they are not without their disadvantages. Principally among the disadvantages of commercially available boat support systems today is that they are generally limited in the type and size of boat that they will accommodate. Often boat support systems purchased today are only designed to support one size of boat. Furthermore the restriction goes on a step further inasmuch as the same will often only support a certain shape boat of that size. As a result boat manufacturers and dealers and other firms that utilize boat support systems in their business have found it frustrating in attempting to purchase boat support systems that are practical and to a significant extent universally compatible with a wide range of boat sizes and shapes.
In addition some commercially available boat support systems known today tend to be unduly complicated, and difficult to handle as well as being relatively expensive. Often one finds that because of a particular design approach that the size of individual components are required to be larger than necessary if the boat support system had been designed more appropriately. Obviously this adds weight and accordingly cost not to mention the added difficulties and effort required in handling and moving.
Therefore, there exists a real need for a boat support system, especially for sailboats, that is designed to easily and conveniently accommodate different size and shaped hulls and which is relatively simple and inexpensive. Further it is important that such a boat support system be designed such that it can assume a compact size and position for convenient and easy handling, storage and transport.